Our Travels: Scotland - Day 8

We should just christen this the day of walking. There is always one (usually more) on each trip! Our first breakfast at 14 Hart Street was really nice. It is in the dining room and you feel like you are at the family table. That's what it is - just one large table, with the end set up for us. The middle was laden with cereal, fruit, and yogurt with lots of jams and jellies to choose from! After a heartening breakfast we set off once again for the Old Town, beginning our day with a tour of Edinburgh Castle. It was slightly drizzly but since we are now seasoned Scottish tourists, it didn't phase us a bit! The castle really is magnificent - there has been a structure on that location for at least 2000 years. The current castle has been built up over many years with some areas being 500 years old and other much newer. One of the newer parts of the castle is the national war memorial. This is the most stunning war monument I have ever seen. It appears to be a church from the outside, but inside there is a nave for each branch or regiment in the Scottish military. Some are set up by clans. At each area there are two books, one for WWI and one for WWII which give the names of the soldiers lost. There are also separate areas for the Navy, Marines, and Air Force. I the back of all of this there is a domed room containing their tomb of the unknowns. There were some beautiful words written on the wall, but I can't recall them. The other highlight of the castle was the Scottish Crown jewels. They aren't as fancy as the English jewels but they are impressive. We went in the entrance that tells the story of the jewels how they were made, hidden, and subsequently rediscovered. We also learned a little about Mary, Queen of Scotts and her son James the VI, but crowned as infants!

After we were finished at the castle, it was a short walk to our next stop - the Camera Obscura Museum of Illusion. What a place this is! There are 4 floors of exhibits relating to different types of optical illusions - holograms, mirror mazes, trick photos and everything else you could think of! Josh really liked the vortex tunnel - a tunnel you walk through that has spinning lights all around, making the tunnel seem like it is rotating and causing you to lose your balance. He loved it until he went through it too fast the last time and ran into the mirror at the end, hurting both his pride and his nose. At the very top of the museum is the camera obscura. A hidden camera if you will that is positioned at top of the tower and looks out over the Old Town. It is projected onto a simple stone disc and we had fun sightseeing over the city and spying down on the people walking around. At one point he handed out fold paper cards and we were invited to pick up the people walking around and put them down again - it was great fun! We spent quite a lot of time in the museum so that when we came out it was time for a bite to eat. Score one for Jeff's prowess using Trip Advisor. It pointed us to a small store front called "Oink" there was a whole BBQ pig in the window and that is all they serve! There were three sizes of pork sandwich and you could get it with haggis or onion and sage. Then there were choices of sauce - BBQ, applies, sweet chili and one other. We all got with onion and sage and the apple compote - so delicious and simple! What a genius idea. It was hard to get Jeff to agree to eat anywhere else after that :)

We needed a bit of a breather after that so we headed back to Hart Street for a quick rest via the Royal Mile. This took awhile as we poked into and out of shops, including a nice sweet shop! Dinner was just around the corner and a small restaurant called the Olive Branch. Like many other establishments in Edinburgh, children are not allowed in after 8pm. Lucky for us, it was only 6:30 so we had plenty of time. The menu was small, but appetizing. In the end Jeff and I wound up getting the same thing - Chicken Ballotine - a delicious chicken breast that was filled with meat and stuffing, then wrapped in prosciutto - complete heaven. It came with fried polenta sticks that were perfectly crispy and delicious. Another quick breather and it was time for the main event.

The Edinburgh Military Tattoo is one of the large military festivals anywhere I think. It is comprised of pipe and drum bands from different regiments in the Scottish army and commonwealth. Other nations also take part in the festivities. More impressive is that it is staged on the esplanade in front of Edinburgh Castle - what an imposing and impressive backdrop! This years theme was the seasons throughout Scotland with music and in some cases, dance performed around each of the four seasons. To describe the whole thing would take pages it was so detailed, but there were definite highlights. Josh's favorite was a precision motorcycle team called the Imps. These are children ages 5-16 that performs amazing tricks on their motorcycles. They were supposed to represent the midges in springtime. They were frenetic and full of energy. They saved their best for last with a stacked pyramid driven around the area. Really cool! I (Karen) also enjoyed the Koreans with their synchronized drumming and fun lion dancers as well as the Mexicans who were so vibrant in their dancing and playing. The New Zealanders were also fun to watch. They appear very lighthearted and seem like they would be the life of any party! The finale was so very impressive - at the end all the drums and pipes come back to play together and there are fireworks going off above the castle and it is really incredible. Then there is a lone bagpiper who stands in the dark atop the castle rampart wall, lit only by a spotlight that plays a tribute to the fallen soldiers. Very touching. Finally everyone comes back to the esplanade for the final few songs and they all make a grand exit. What a spectacle! By the time we got home it was 11:15pm and we were ready to drop!